Maisie suffered him to lead her into the house without saying a word, for she wanted all her strength to keep from sobbing. The poor fingers were bathed and bound up, and after she had been kissed and comforted, Aunt Katharine said that on the whole she thought Maisie had better not use hammer and nails again. Maisie thought so too just then, but presently, when the pain went off, she began to feel sorry that she was not to help with the jackdaws' house any more. Certainly, as Aunt Katharine pointed out, she could watch Dennis at his work and give advice; but as he never by any chance took any one's advice but Tuvvy's, that would not be very amusing. "You can hand me the nails, you know," said Dennis, as she sat with a sorrowful face on Aunt Katharine's knee, "and after the jackdaws are in, you can always help to feed them." And with this she was obliged to console herself. CHAPTER TEN. ONE WHITE PAW. The jackdaws' house got on slowly, and this was not surprising, as Dennis had a way of pulling his work to pieces and doing it all over again. Maisie grew impatient sometimes, for at this rate she thought the jackdaws would not be settled in their home until summer was over. "Hadn't you better let Tuvvy finish it off?" she said one day, when Dennis had spent a full hour in trying to fix a perch to his satisfaction; "it wouldn't take a real carpenter more than half an hour." Dennis made no answer at first to this taunt. Maisie was only a girl, who did not understand, so it did not matter what she said. Whistling softly, he tried all manner of different positions for the perch, but none pleased him. After all, it would certainly be necessary to have Tuvvy's advice, but that was quite another matter to letting him do the work. "I shall have to go and see Tuvvy," he said, carelessly throwing down the piece of wood he held; "perhaps Aunt Katharine will let you go too. You could stop at old Sally's, if you didn't want to go into the barn." As it happened, Aunt Katharine wanted to send a pudding to old Sally, who had been ill, and she gladly gave Maisie leave to go with Dennis, so Peter in attendance, and the pudding in a basket, the children set out the next morning directly after their lessons. Maisie was pleased to make this visit, and it was such a very bright fresh June morning, that everything out of doors seemed to be as happy as herself as she danced along, with Peter jumping and barking at her side. The sky was as bright blue as the speedwell in the hedges; the leaves on the trees, not old enough yet to be dark and heavy, fluttered gaily in the wind, and made a light green shimmer everywhere. The fields were still dressed in yellow and white, for none of the farmers had cut their grass, and in the woods the deep purple hyacinths still lingered, though these were nearly over. It looked a very happy, bright, flowery world, with everything in it fresh and new, and nothing old or sad to think about.